Zack Snyder Talks XERXES; Describes Epic Naval Battle

While in London last week doing press for Legend of the Guardians, director Zack Snyder talked about his plans for the upcoming 300 spinoff, Xerxes. I say “spinoff” because as we previously reported, Snyder says that Xerxes isn’t a “prequel or a sequel” because it’s about the Battle of Artemisium, which took place during the exact same three days as the Battle of Thermopylae (which was depicted in 300). But whereas Thermopylae was a land battle, Artmisium was fought at sea and Snyder has big plans for how he plans to depict that fight. Hit the jump for how he says he’s going to have Greeks and Persians going at it this time.

Here’s what Snyder told Greece’s Athinorama magazine about how the naval battle scenes are going to go down:

We’re doing all these sequences were the triremes all crash together and the battlefield is all the boats crashing together so the men run across the ships as they’re fighting, so that should be fun. And horses and everything. It’s crazy.

Snyder says that he’s writing the film right now, but since he’s been hired to directSuperman: The Man of Steel, don’t expect to see any big movement on Xerxes anytime soon unless Snyder decides to let someone else direct and stays on only in a producing/screenwriting capacity.

It’s worth nothing that Frank Miller, who wrote the 300 graphic novel, is also writing a comic mini-series of Xerxes, but his version sounds very different. Miller’s Xerxeswill take place over the span of ten years and also involves gods. The mini-series is due out next year.

Here’s the video of Athinorama’s interview. Snyder begins talking about Xerxes around the 4:26 mark: